Shot-by-Shot Video Analysis Pro – Storyboard, Camera Moves & Director Notes

TubeText · Video & ad analysis · Pay per result. No login. Ready for AI agents. All tools

Quick start (no coding)

1. Click Try for free at the top of this page. A free Apify account is enough – it includes monthly credit.
2. In Video URLs, paste one public video link per line – TikTok, YouTube video or Short, Instagram Reel, Facebook, X, Bilibili or a direct .mp4.
3. Click Start. A 30-s clip takes 1–2 minutes; longer videos about 1.1–1.3× their length.
4. When it says Succeeded, open the Output tab and click Export → Excel (or CSV). One row per measured shot (framing, camera move, emotion, why this shot, what to steal) and one summary row per video (structure, edit rhythm, director's synthesis, audience signals).

Cost: $0.20 per started minute, $0.60 minimum per video – a 30-s TikTok = $0.60, a 10-minute YouTube video = $2.00.

Common mistakes

• A long video was skipped → raise Max video length (minutes) (default 15, up to 60).
• The run stopped before finishing → long videos need time: set the run timeout to about 1.5× the total video length.
• Just need the hook and a quick shot list for many videos → use Video Breakdown AI at $0.03 per video.

Questions or problems? Open an issue (we read every one). Need a custom version? Ask in an issue or email us – we build it as a private Actor on Apify.

Use from Claude, Cursor or any MCP client

Add https://mcp.apify.com?tools=tubetext/shot-by-shot-video-analysis as a remote MCP server and sign in to Apify (Claude: Settings → Connectors → Add custom connector). Claude Code:

$claude mcp add --transport http tubetext "https://mcp.apify.com?tools=tubetext/shot-by-shot-video-analysis"

Then ask, for example: "Break down this ad shot by shot and show where viewers replayed or commented: [link]" or "Analyze the top 3 videos on this YouTube channel like a director: what should I steal for my next video?"

🆓 Free to try: Apify's free plan includes $5 of usage every month, no credit card needed – enough for about 8 short-video breakdowns (30-s videos at $0.60) with this tool.

What you get – real output from a test run, shortened. One row per shot (plus composition, on-screen text, spoken line, performance, sound and transitions in more columns), and one summary row per video:

#	Time	Framing · angle · camera	Purpose	Why this shot
1	00:00-00:02	WS · top-down · static	hook	Starting with a 2-second top-down 'hero shot' of the finished meal establishes immediate…
2	00:02-00:03	WS · top-down · static	hook	This 1.07-second action shot emphasizes the creaminess of the dish by lifting the pasta,…
3	00:03-00:04	MCU · top-down · static	hook	The tighter 1.33-second framing focuses exclusively on the 'cheese pull' and texture, whi…

Analyze any public video shot by shot, the way a director or editor would. For every shot you get the framing, camera movement, composition, on-screen text, spoken line, performance, emotion, sound cue and edit transition, plus why it was shot this way. For the whole video you get the emotion curve, the structure, edit-rhythm stats and a director's synthesis: what works, what to steal, what to avoid. It also ties audience signals to the shots that caused them: YouTube replay peaks, Bilibili danmaku bursts and comments. Works on YouTube, TikTok, Instagram Reels, Facebook, X, Bilibili and direct video files, including your competitors' videos. Pay per video minute, not per seat.

What you get

• 🎬 One row per shot: start/end from measured cuts (scene detection, not guessed), framing (ECU, CU, MCU, MS, WS…), angle, cameraMove (static, pan, tilt, push-in, pull-out, handheld…), composition, onScreenText, spoken, speaker, performance (gesture, energy, delivery), emotionLabel + emotionScore, sound, transitionIn/transitionOut, purpose (hook, setup, demo, pitch, payoff…), whyThisShot and stealThis (the one thing to copy from this shot).
• 📈 Emotion curve and structure: emotion per shot, the curve's shape in one line (e.g. "anticipation → curiosity build → spike at 15.8 s → dip → satisfaction"), and the beats with shot ranges.
• ✂️ Edit rhythm and coverage: cuts, average/median/shortest/longest shot, cuts per minute, the rhythm pattern in words, and how many camera setups were used.
• 🧠 Director's synthesis + production read: what the film-making does well, what to steal, what to avoid, and how it was probably shot (rig, lighting, crew).
• 🔥 Audience overlays where the data exists: YouTube "most replayed" peaks mapped to shots, Bilibili danmaku (弹幕) density per shot, and top comments summarized. Each overlay row is labeled alignment: timestamp | text_mention | semantic | none, so you know how solid the link to a shot is.
• 🧩 Everything from Video Breakdown AI too: hook, transcript, products shown and commercial intent, so you don't need to run both.

Analysis plus audience signals

Pro doesn't stop at describing shots. It ties what the audience did to the exact shot where it happened, wherever the platform exposes that data:

• YouTube replay peaks: in a 9-minute Casey Neistat video, the "most replayed" peak at 2:57 (the strongest point on the curve) lines up with a meme overlay on shot 43. That's the moment viewers rewound.
• Bilibili danmaku bursts: on a Bilibili story video, a burst of 95 bullet comments in 11 seconds landed on one specific story beat, so you can see exactly which line made the audience react.
• Comments that point at a shot: on a MrBeast Short, the top comment (218 likes) compared the build to "SimCity in real life", and Pro matched it to the scale-model shot #2.

Peak shots carry an audiencePeak note, and the video row lists the top signals under directorSynthesis.audienceSignals. Every signal says how it was linked (alignment: timestamp | text_mention | semantic | none). When a platform has no such data (TikTok has no replay heatmap, danmaku exist only on Bilibili), the row says so instead of guessing.

Who it's for

• UGC and performance teams: understand why a competitor's ad holds attention, shot by shot, before you brief creators.
• Directors, editors and film students: a storyboard plus "why" notes for any reference video.
• Agencies and MCNs: review client and competitor content with a consistent, exportable shot table.
• AI agents: one call returns a structured storyboard that an LLM can reason over (see "Use from Claude" below).

Storyboard from video

Paste a link and get the shot list as a storyboard: timecodes, keyframe description, framing and camera move per shot, ready for Excel, Notion or a brief. In our test, a 31-second TikTok recipe ad came back as 26 measured shots from 21 camera setups (47.9 cuts per minute).

Shot-by-shot analysis of ads and UGC

Real output for a 31-second TikTok recipe ad (an app promotion), first 3 of 26 shots, shortened:

#	Time	Framing · angle · camera	Purpose	Why this shot
1	0:00–0:02	WS · top-down · static	hook	A 2-second "hero shot" of the finished meal sets appeal and trust before the cooking starts.
2	0:02–0:03	WS · top-down · static	hook	A spoon lift shows the creaminess and repeats shot 1's setup, which builds a visual identity.
3	0:03–0:04	MCU · top-down · static	hook	A tighter 1.3-second frame on the cheese pull: a proven food-engagement trope and the payoff of the hook.

Per video, the same run returned the director's synthesis. What works: "the result-first food hook… before starting the instructions". What to steal: "sub-second cuts for repetitive tasks to compress time". Plus the production read: "a single overhead rig… hands only… low crew effort".

Input

• Video links: one per line. YouTube videos and Shorts, TikTok, Instagram Reels, Facebook, X, Bilibili, direct .mp4.
• Or discover videos: a channel or profile (newest or most popular), a YouTube search, or another Actor's dataset (datasetId). Set maxVideosPerSource.
• Maximum cost per run: set by default, so a big channel can't run up a surprise bill.
• Max video length (minutes): default 15, up to 60. Longer videos are skipped, free. A 15-minute video costs $3.00.
• Output language: default English. Quotes (on-screen text, spoken lines) stay in the video's original language.
• Audience overlays: on by default and free, where the data exists. YouTube "most replayed" peaks and Bilibili danmaku density are mapped to shots by timestamp, plus top comments.

Output example

{
  "rowType": "shot", "index": 1, "timecode": "00:00-00:02", "duration": 2,
  "framing": "WS", "angle": "top-down", "cameraMove": "static",
  "onScreenText": "cheap & delicious dinners: Chipotle Chicken Mac & Cheese",
  "speaker": "voice-over", "emotionLabel": "anticipation", "emotionScore": 0.8,
  "transitionIn": "start", "transitionOut": "hard cut", "purpose": "hook",
  "whyThisShot": "Starting with a 2-second top-down 'hero shot' of the finished meal establishes immediate visual appeal…",
  "stealThis": "Start with a high-contrast top-down 'hero shot' of the final product…",
  "charged": false
}

One "rowType": "video" row per video adds hook, structure, editRhythm, emotionCurveShape, directorSynthesis, productionRead, coverage, overlays (with overlaysAvailable and the reason when an overlay doesn't exist for that platform), billedMinutes and priceUsd.

Pricing

$0.20 per started minute of video, $0.60 minimum per video (3 started minutes) at the Apify free-plan price (lower on paid plans). For example, a 30-second TikTok costs $0.60 and a 10-minute YouTube video $2.00. Every row has a charged field, and the run's status line shows the total.

When you're not charged at all

• The link is wrong, private, deleted or can't be downloaded. We find this out before any AI runs.
• Something fails on our side: our AI provider is overloaded or rate-limited, or our code crashes.

The one partial charge: processing-fee, at our cost, $0.03 per started minute processed It applies only when the AI analysis already ran on your video and no full breakdown came out:

• your Maximum cost per run or timeout stopped the run partway through that video,
• you aborted the run while that video was being analyzed,
• or the video gave the model nothing usable (for example a blank or corrupted stream).

The fee covers exactly what we spent on AI for that video, with no margin, and the row says why it was charged. If the per-shot analysis finishes but the director pass fails, you still get every shot row at the normal price, and the row notes the missing synthesis. Every row has costCase (for example free, processing-fee, cache-free or a normal charge), so you can see which rule applied. We never charge for work we didn't do.

Just need the hook, shot list and script fast? Video Breakdown AI does a quick one-pass breakdown for $0.03 per video.

Ready-made examples

• UGC Ad Shot-by-Shot Analysis
• YouTube Short Storyboard + Replay Peaks

TubeText Labs tools

TubeText Labs builds 31 pay-per-result Apify Actors for video, social and e-commerce data – no login, JSON/CSV/Excel output, and ready for ChatGPT and Claude (Apify MCP), n8n, Make and Zapier. All tools: apify.com/tubetext

Transcripts

• YouTube Transcript Scraper – videos, Shorts, playlists and whole channels to text; Whisper AI when there are no captions
• TikTok Transcript Scraper – TikTok captions plus Whisper AI, SRT and timestamps
• Instagram Reels Transcript – reel links or @usernames to text with Whisper AI
• Podcast & Video Transcript – podcast RSS / Apple Podcasts, X, Facebook, Loom, Twitch and audio files to text
• Facebook Video Transcript – public Facebook videos and Reels to text with Whisper AI
• X (Twitter) Video Transcript – X/Twitter video posts to text with Whisper AI
• Reddit Video Transcript – videos in public Reddit posts (v.redd.it) to text with Whisper AI, with SRT and timestamps
• Bilibili Video Transcript – Bilibili (B站) videos to text with Whisper AI, plus optional English summaries
• Podcast Transcript – podcast RSS feeds and Apple Podcasts episodes to text with Whisper AI

Video & ad analysis

• Video Breakdown AI – hook analysis, shot list, cut pacing, products shown and script of any TikTok, Reel or YouTube video
• Shot-by-Shot Video Analysis Pro (this tool) – director-level storyboard of any video: framing, camera move, emotion and why each shot works, plus replay peaks, danmaku and comments tied to shots
• Video Ad Analyzer – competitors' YouTube video ads by brand or domain (Google Ads Transparency), torn down by AI
• Meta Ad Library Scraper – Facebook and Instagram ads by brand or keyword: video URLs, images, ad copy, CTA and landing page

Social, apps & trends

• YouTube Channel Analytics – subscribers, recent video performance, Social Blade grade, ranks and estimated earnings
• Bilibili Scraper – Bilibili (B站) keyword search, popular board, top-100 ranking, video stats, danmaku text and creator (UP主) followers – no login
• China Trending Topics – Douyin, Weibo, Baidu, Toutiao and Bilibili hot-search boards in one run, in English – plus an optional AI briefing on why topics trend
• WeChat Article Scraper – WeChat 公众号 articles by keyword or link: full text, English titles and optional English summaries
• Google Play Reviews + AI Insights – Android app reviews by star rating, country and language, plus an AI report of complaints and praise
• Steam Reviews Scraper + AI Insights – Steam game reviews with hours played and votes, review score and current players, plus an AI report of top complaints, praise and feature requests
• Social Blade Scraper – Social Blade stats for YouTube, TikTok, Instagram and Twitch creators – grade, ranks, 2-week growth, daily history, earnings estimates and top-100 lists
• Spotify Play Count Scraper – play counts for every track of an album, artist or playlist (incl. Top 50 charts), plus monthly listeners, followers, world rank and top cities

E-commerce & travel

• TikTok Shop Product Scraper – US TikTok Shop prices, items sold, stock per SKU and shop stats
• AliExpress Search Scraper – AliExpress search results by keyword: price, items sold, rating, shipping, badges
• Google Hotels Scraper – hotel prices for any destination and dates, per booking site and as a 90-day price calendar
• Taobao & Tmall Product Scraper – Taobao/Tmall products by Chinese or English keyword, category or URL: CNY prices, shops and seller scores
• Alibaba & Yiwu Supplier Finder by Image – product photo in, similar Alibaba.com and Yiwu wholesale listings out: price, MOQ, supplier, country and rating
• Amazon Product Search Scraper – Amazon search results, Best Sellers lists and product pages: price, rating, reviews, monthly sales signal, badges and specs
• Google Flights Scraper – flight prices for any route or multi-city trip, a cheapest-day calendar, price insights and booking options per site
• Agoda & Booking.com Hotel Reviews + AI – Agoda hotel reviews plus verified Booking.com reviews shown on Agoda, hotel scores and sub-scores, and an AI report of complaints, praise and action items
• Gas Prices Scraper (US & Canada) – live gas station prices by ZIP, city or coordinates – regular, premium, diesel, E85 – with an area summary of the cheapest stations
• Idealo Price Scraper – every shop offer for a product on idealo – price, shipping, delivery, shop rating – in Germany, Austria, France, Italy, Spain and the UK, with a summary per market

Questions or problems? Open an issue (we read every one). Need a custom version? Ask in an issue or email us – we build it as a private Actor on Apify.

Found it useful? A short review on this page helps others find it.

Built by TubeText Labs · Pay per result. No login. Ready for AI agents.

FAQ

How is this different from Video Breakdown AI? Breakdown is a fast, cheap overview: hook, shot list, pacing, script. Pro measures every cut, analyzes each shot in depth with a stronger model, and adds director notes, the emotion curve, edit rhythm and audience overlays. Use Breakdown to scan many videos, and Pro on the ones worth studying.

Are shot boundaries accurate? Cuts are measured with scene detection on the actual video, and the AI describes each measured shot. It never invents its own cut points. Flash frames are dropped and shots under 0.4 s are merged (the video row's cutDetection says what was adjusted). Slow dissolves and one-take animations can come out as a single long shot.

Which videos work best? Public videos up to 60 minutes (set Max video length; the default is 15). Long videos are analyzed in chunks. Live streams aren't supported yet.

How long does it take? Analysis takes about 1.1–1.3× the video's length for longer videos: a 9-minute YouTube video took 10–12 minutes in our tests, a 3-minute Bilibili video about 3 minutes, and a 20–40 s clip 1–2 minutes. Instagram downloads can add a few minutes. The run's status message shows progress (downloading → measuring cuts → shots analyzed → director pass). For long videos, set a run timeout of at least 1.5× the total video length.

Can I re-run a video? Yes. Results are cached for 24 hours in a key-value store in your own account (director-pro-cache). Re-running the same video with the same settings returns the saved result in seconds, rows marked fromCache. It's free: you already paid for that video, so cached results are not charged (costCase: cache-free).

Can I analyze a competitor's videos? Yes, any public video. No login is used.

中文说明

分镜脚本 / 视频拆解（导演级）：粘贴任意公开视频链接（YouTube、TikTok、Instagram Reels、B站、Facebook、X 或 .mp4；暂不支持抖音），逐个镜头输出景别、运镜、构图、画面文字、台词、表演、情绪、音效与转场，并说明"为什么这样拍"（钩子、铺垫、反转、证明、行动号召）。整条视频另有情绪曲线、结构、剪辑节奏和导演点评（值得学的、该避免的）。B站视频可叠加每个镜头的弹幕密度，YouTube 热门视频可叠加"最多重播"高峰。按视频分钟计费（$0.20/分钟，每条最低 $0.60），下载或分析失败不收费。适合短视频团队、广告投放、MCN 和导演/剪辑做爆款视频拆解与分镜脚本参考。